On Our Radar: Mixed Up on Multitasking

“How are you?” “Oh, you know, busy.” Sound familiar? Busyness as a state of being makes us feel important, but it also overshadows everything else in life, according to this essay in The New York Times. In fact – get ready for a dose of armchair psychology – perpetually saying you’re booked might just camouflage the fact that much of what we do is pretty insignificant. — Leslie Kwoh

Barclays CEO Robert Diamond resigned Tuesday amid a scandal involving interest-rate fixing, effectively leaving the bank bossless, The Wall Street Journal reports. This is certainly different from the deliberately bossless companies we wrote about recently, where employees make joint decisions on issues like pay and workflow. – Leslie Kwoh

Pay attention: Lifehacker offers up a scientific explanation of what multitasking does to our brains. They’ve also got some tips for how to “singletask” more successfully. – Melissa Korn

Will the click of a computer mouse eventually be replaced by the wave of a hand? Maybe sooner than you think. Say hello to “gesture-recognition hardware” which moves beyond mice — and even touch — to recognize patterns of movement made by the hands moving through air, reports Fortune. Squeak! – Francesca Donner

And finally…

Are internet breaks the new coffee breaks? The New York Times looks at how we handle digital distractions. — Nikki Waller

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Written and edited by The Wall Street Journal’s Management & Careers group, At Work covers life on the job, from getting ahead to managing staff to finding passion and purpose in the office. Tips, questions? email us.